


In the Cathedral of The Mind

by Katzedecimal



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mind Palace, Pratchett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 05:32:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has a go at his own mind palace and finds he has a few surprises for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Cathedral of The Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkSakura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSakura/gifts).



> for the prompt "Ashtray, Blanket, Cathedral"

It was remarkable. John lay on his back, on the couch, although he didn't tent his fingers. He was wandering the halls and rooms of his own memory palace and he was astonished by what he saw.

He had been warned many times, the mind knew what it wanted, but that people were often resistant to the locale their minds selected. He understood why immediately: Camp Bastion was a place he wished to leave in the past. The scene of his years of army service, the theater where he had witnessed so much of the horror that man could willingly perpetrate on man (and woman and child), the place where he felt useful and needed. The place where he had fallen. He wanted to dissociate from it, not relive its austere halls again and again. But it was, in every sense, the place John knew intimately.

He knew its kitchen and canteens. He knew its operating theaters and its helipads, its triage and its wards. He knew its dormitories, its lecture halls, its pubs, its rec halls... 

He knew its chapel.

It wasn't remotely like this. This was a cathedral. This was a towering edifice of granite and stained glass, nestled at the heart of the camp. The camp walls surrounded it, the buildings hemmed it in and somehow, every armoured vehicle in the camp's vicinity was oriented subtly towards it.

John understood immediately.

Inside, it was all delicate crystal and gold, shimmering in an ethereal light that seemed to have no source. The alcoves, built into the walls, halls not statues of saints, but artifacts of John's life. The roses he'd bought for his mother. The model rocket he'd built with his Dad. His sister's wedding band. His dog tags.

The ashtray that Sherlock had stolen for him, from Buckingham Palace. He touched it lightly, remembering. He'd only been half kidding about the urge. Sherlock had been naked under a sheet, too stubborn to prove his brother didn't own him to care about propriety. In truth, Mycroft had been just as belligerent of a prat, just as provoking and just as determined not to take no for an answer. God, what a pair! He should be relieved to be rid of them both.

He wasn't. He never would be.

A flash of brilliant orange caught his eye -- the shock blanket. He'd almost forgotten about it (though clearly he hadn't, since it was here.) Sherlock had been wearing it when he had worked out that John had killed a man, a serial killer (not a very nice man and a bloody awful cabbie), to save his life. (It was only fair; Sherlock had saved John's life, after all) Recalling an earlier conversation, John had called him an idiot, and Sherlock had smiled...

John woke up a few minutes later, bathed in the light of that oh so rare smile, the smile that lit the cathedral so delicately. He turned, not wanting to see what lay before the altar. 

_No... No no no. I don't want to see._

John turned, not wanting to see the body laid out on the couch, its pale face composed, framed by dark curls. He didn't want to see the long dark lashes laying delicately on the pale cheeks, slightly plumper than when they'd first met. He didn't want to see the sharp cheekbones or the lips he'd secretly longed to kiss. He didn't want to see the long fingers tented beneath the sharp chin. 

He turned and frowned. He stepped closer, trying to read the card that was held between the slender fingers on the unmoving chest. He concentrated, trying to focus his mind. Then just when he was about to give up, the words on the card sprang into sharp clarity and he read:

**_I ATEN'T DEAD_ **


End file.
